In recent years, as a thin, lightweight, and fast responsible display device, attention has been focused on an organic EL (Electro Luminescence) display device. The organic EL display device includes a plurality of pixel circuits arranged two-dimensionally. Each pixel circuit of the organic EL display device includes an organic EL element and a drive transistor provided in series with the organic EL element. The drive transistor controls the amount of current flowing through the organic EL element, and the organic EL element emits light at a luminance depending on the amount of current flowing therethrough.
The organic EL display device has a problem of a reduction in the luminances of pixels with usage time. The reason for the reduction in the luminances of pixels is that the light-emission efficiency of the organic EL elements decreases and the characteristics (e.g., a threshold voltage) of the drive transistors change with usage time. For a method for solving this problem, there is known a method in which a current flowing through a pixel circuit is read out to a source external to the pixel circuit via a data line, etc., and a video signal is corrected based on a result of measurement of the read current (see, for example, Patent Document 1). Note that a video signal may be corrected based on a result of measurement of a voltage instead of a current.
Apart from this, as a low power consumption display device, there is known a display device that performs pause driving (also called intermittent driving or low-frequency driving). The pause driving is a drive method in which a drive period and a pause period are provided when the same image is continuously displayed, and drive circuits operate during the drive period, and the operation of the drive circuits is stopped during the pause period. The pause driving can be applied when transistors in pixel circuits have excellent off-leakage characteristics (small off-leakage current). A display device that performs pause driving is described in, for example, Patent Document 2.